Linux - HardwareThis forum is for Hardware issues.
Having trouble installing a piece of hardware? Want to know if that peripheral is compatible with Linux?
Notices
Welcome to LinuxQuestions.org, a friendly and active Linux Community.
You are currently viewing LQ as a guest. By joining our community you will have the ability to post topics, receive our newsletter, use the advanced search, subscribe to threads and access many other special features. Registration is quick, simple and absolutely free. Join our community today!
Note that registered members see fewer ads, and ContentLink is completely disabled once you log in.
If you have any problems with the registration process or your account login, please contact us. If you need to reset your password, click here.
Having a problem logging in? Please visit this page to clear all LQ-related cookies.
Get a virtual cloud desktop with the Linux distro that you want in less than five minutes with Shells! With over 10 pre-installed distros to choose from, the worry-free installation life is here! Whether you are a digital nomad or just looking for flexibility, Shells can put your Linux machine on the device that you want to use.
Exclusive for LQ members, get up to 45% off per month. Click here for more info.
I have this old pc I want to put linux on. Here are the specs :
Pentium 100 / Tomato intel VX or FX 5XPD (not too certain, not home atm cant look it up) / 48mb ram / Realtek 10mbit / Soundblaster Pro / Afree 52x speed atapi cd-rom / Ami Bios / 1.2Gb Seagate drive
Now this should normally be a breeze although this system can't boot from cd-rom. Put a floppy in the drive boot it and start the install from cdrom.
However I think the floppy port is broken. I can't get it to work, no matter how I connect the cable to the Floppy drive. Tried 3 different cables and an equal amount of drives.
What would be the next step to try?
Also I would like to mention, 2 pci ports and 3 isa ports are still available. But I don't really feel like putting in another floppy controller. As I would need to search around to find one...don't have it laying around.
Does the floppy itself work in another PC?
Silly question, but is the bootsequence correct (A first)?
Do you get any error messages?
Is there already an OS on the HD?
Originally posted by Wim Sturkenboom Does the floppy itself work in another PC?
Silly question, but is the bootsequence correct (A first)?
Do you get any error messages?
Is there already an OS on the HD?
Thanks for your reply.
I should have mentioned this but yes all the floppy drives work in other systems, even all the cables work. That's why I suspect the onboard fdd controller to be broken. The bootsequence in the BIOS is currently set to floppy followed by the harddrive, no cdrom or fancy usb options :-)
As for error messages I do get a message saying that no bootdevice can be found. The harddrive did have windows 98 on it but it got cleared on my request before I got the drive from a friend. I did not know at this time the onboard fdd controller would have been broken.
well, what you could do, is take the Hard Drive and put it onto a different computer then put linux on it then put it back into the older system.
I know when it installs it wont install the right drivers for your older system, but when it starts up in the older system is should detect the different hardware, and install new drivers.
Originally posted by Wim Sturkenboom I was referring to the floppy (disk) itself, not the floppy drives. Sorry that that was not clear.
I have tried with 2 different floppies, both new out of the pack. But the system does say something very briefly about floppy drive A: not found, but only for a very brief moment and after that immediately wants to load an os from the harddrive.
Yesterday I put the drive into another system (Celeron 900 / Gigabyte 810e chipset / Toshiba DVD / 512Mb ram), and proceeded to install ubuntu.
Everything went fine, however at the end when the installer tries to install Grub, I got some error about the installer not being able to write to the masterboot record. I then stopped trying with grub and selected the older option Lilo, however this turned up a similar error.
Now I 'm a bit uncertain, but before the installer asked me to install grub it gave me two options on where to install the bootloader (if I'm not mistaken). I choose MBR, maybe I should try the other option. Will try that again tonight.
P.S. : Is Ubuntu a good distro for this? What other distro's might be well suited?
Originally posted by habala
Now I 'm a bit uncertain, but before the installer asked me to install grub it gave me two options on where to install the bootloader (if I'm not mistaken). I choose MBR, maybe I should try the other option. Will try that again tonight.
P.S. : Is Ubuntu a good distro for this? What other distro's might be well suited?
Its nothing to do with the distribution. Its the lilo config you are trying to use. show it here. i suspect that you probably have an old style HDD.
from memory: if the line: LBA32 or something like that is in there replace it with `linear'.
Originally posted by Frustin Its nothing to do with the distribution. Its the lilo config you are trying to use. show it here. i suspect that you probably have an old style HDD.
I realise that, however I meant for hardware detection. As i can imagine that the system will have to do some redetecting after it's been installed on one system and afterwards booted in another.
Quote:
from memory: if the line: LBA32 or something like that is in there replace it with `linear'.
The error happened at the last stages of the install with the harddrive in the Celeron 900 system. Whenever it wants to write the bootrecord.
I can't remember seeing anything about the actual config being displayed, perhaps because it's the only OS installed on it?
Furthermore this LBA32 wouldn't have anything to do with the LBA option in your bios? Don't think the old system has such an option but the newer one has. Perhaps I should try and install it with this option disabled.
Well, I will play around a bit more later on today, when i get back home from work. I will then try to find out what lines are in the lilo config that the installer tries to write.
Your PC might have a virus protection in the BIOS that prevents the MBR from being overwritten.
This might be enabled on your machine. Just disable it and try again. It's not said that this is the cause, but it's often overlooked.
I don't know how well Ubuntu behaves on redetection of the HW. Check the Ubuntu site and the Ubuntu forums
LinuxQuestions.org is looking for people interested in writing
Editorials, Articles, Reviews, and more. If you'd like to contribute
content, let us know.